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1THE FRANKE INSTITUTE FOR THE HUMANITIESTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 2022-2023 BULLETIN
The Franke Institute for the Humanities has worked with the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes to draft a statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter and related movements around the world. We post it here on behalf of CHCI and as a declaration of the Institute’s own values and commitments. Black lives matter. The murders, in the United States, of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others expose exploitations and inequities rooted in more than four centuries of colonialism, enslavement, and the violation of civil and human rights. The international advisory board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes (CHCI) stands in solidarity with those protesting racist forms of injustice and police violence. We commit to creating and promoting anti-racist environments for scholars, students, and sta in the humanities, in the United States, and around the world. We also recognize that we are witness to a phenomenon that is not unique to the United States: forms of institutional racism and repressive violence are present on every continent. While the United States’ foundational armation of equality highlights the violence and demands our attention, we nevertheless rearm our international approach to the elimination of institutional racism and to the dicult work of building more equitable institutions, curricula, concepts, and archives. Scholars in the humanities have deep commitments to concepts such as freedom, humanity, personhood, dignity, and democracy, and yet we recognize that these same concepts often reproduce paradoxes, exclusions, and systems of injustice. By analyzing these concepts, excavating their histories, and examining our own habits and institutions, we commit ourselves to imagining a better future and inventing the world in which we want to live.For more on the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and this statement, please see: chcinetwork.org/ideas/chci-solidarity-statementSOLIDARITY STATEMENT
5123591116 17192123313335Letter from the Dean Letter from the Director Center for Disciplinary InnovationFranke Faculty Grants, 2022–23Collegiate Research Program, 2022–23Fellows’ Research Projects, 2022–23Franke Dissertation Completion Residential Fellows: Next StepsResidential Fellows, 2023–24 Every Wednesday Luncheon SeriesBig Problems Curriculum in the CollegeEvents & Co-sponsors, 2022–23 Events, 2023–24 The Franke Institute in PicturesGoverning Board & Sta CONTENTS
LETTER FROM THE DEANAs I step down from leading the Humanities Division, I have been reflecting on the importance of the humanities, be it on our campus or in the world in general. Humanistic thinking is indispensable: it helps us know “where we should go next.” The pronoun “we” is central here: for the humanities is about “us humans,” as Jonathan Lear has written. It is first personal— not about the science of life, nor about societies and relationships among individuals, nor about nonliving systems. The humanities encompass our creators, those who “survey the human scene and try to give it back to us in poetry and fiction, philosophy, art and other narrative forms,” and our scholars, who drive the discipline known as the humanities and are dedicated to conserving attempts through ages and cultures to understand ourselves. Providing inspiring opportunities and appropriate venues for humanistic study and artistic creation is an enormous task. Our Humanities Division comprises sixteen MA- and PhD-granting departments, encompassing languages and literatures (Classics, English, Germanic Studies, Romance, East Asian, Near Eastern, South Asian, Slavic, Comparative Literature, Linguistics), the arts (Art History, Visual Arts, Music, Cinema and Media Studies, Theater and Performance Studies), and Philosophy. The work in these units is intense, but they are hardly silos. We talk across departments and programs through focused workshops and centers, to be sure, and the one place where we can all go to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary scholarly exchange is the Franke Institute. The Every Wednesday lunchtime discussions that I have attended at the Franke—while enjoying a dierent, delectable cuisine each week—have been a high point of my time as dean. I especially want to thank our director, Richard Neer, for his excellent leadership. Through these gatherings and the many other events that the Institute hosts, along with the vibrant research cohort that is constituted annually, Richard fosters a consistently high level of reflection on important topics about “us humans” by faculty from across the Division and beyond. I know the Franke will continue as a beacon of distinction for the humanities writ large, and I look forward to spending more time there in my post-dean years. Anne Walters Robertson Dean, Division of the Humanities
2LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR2It has been a delightful fourth year as director of the Franke Institute—the first of my term in which the sta and fellows have been in residence for an entire academic year. We closed due to COVID midway through my first year; stayed remote for the entirety of the second; returned, then went remote, then returned again in the third. And now, in the fourth, it’s been a return to a normalcy that feels anything but normal.The Institute has come alive with a continuous sequence of conferences and events to complement the quieter but no less intense research of our residential fellows. It was a joy to spend a year getting to know our brilliant scholars through sustained, face-to-face conversation—and to welcome new faculty and old friends to our Every Wednesday luncheons in person, with real food. Meanwhile, our program of Franke Faculty Grants has gained traction; particularly gratifying is the number of junior and mid-career scholars we can support alongside established luminaries. We introduced these grants when the Mellon Foundation, our longtime partner, pivoted away from funding basic research in the humanities; now, careful stewardship of resources (and a generous gift from Richard and Barbara Franke in honor of James Chandler) means that the Institute is underwriting the research of more faculty, at a higher level, than ever before. We continue to partner with the College in new ways; even as I write, for instance, I can hear the students in the College Summer Institute using the Franke as their home base as they work to become the next generation of humanistic researchers. Meanwhile, the Center for Disciplinary Innovation has successfully expanded into the College as well, bringing team-taught, cutting-edge scholarship to advanced undergraduates. It is a long way from empty halls and Zoom meetings: we are back in business, doubling down on our belief that high-level research and broad engagement can grow together from more to more.Richard NeerDirector, The Franke Institute for the Humanities
The Center for Disciplinary Innovation (CDI) hosts and sponsors exploratory courses as a way to incubate new initiatives and programs, from collaborative research projects to undergraduate minors and Core sequences to graduate tracks and research centers. Each course is co-taught by two faculty, each of whom receives full credit for teaching the course. Courses are oered at three levels: undergraduate, graduate, and mixed grad/undergrad. Calls for proposals go out each fall, and the final section of oerings for the next academic year is made by the Board of the Franke Institute.Please contact Mai Vukcevich (mav@uchicago.edu), assistant director of the CDI, for additional information.CDI COURSES, 2022–23Creations: Popol Vuh and Paradise LostTimothy Harrison, English Language & LiteratureEdgar Garcia, English Language & LiteratureGraduate seminarRelated Event:Screening of Chac: The Rain God with an introduction by Edgar GarciaPolitics and Cinema Under AuthorityMaria Belodubrovskaya, Cinema & Media StudiesMonika Nalepa, Political ScienceMixed-enrollment courseOpera without BordersMartha Feldman, MusicJudith Zeitlin, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsGraduate seminarPostcolonial and Decolonial History and TheoryRochona Majumdar, South Asian Languages & CivilizationsLisa Wedeen, Political ScienceUndergraduate course
4Still from Chac: The Rain God, Rolando Klein (1975)STUDENT FEEDBACKOn the course, Creations: Popol Vuh and Paradise Lost “They’re staging for us this ability to engage in comparative work without needing to be an expert in both texts. That mastery is not a precondition for being able to participate is a model of what classes should be.” – Esmé Nandorfy-Fischlin, Divinity SchoolOn the course, Virtual Ethnography: Encounters in Mediation “As a humanities student, I had not previously explored human activities online. Collaborating with Professors Lamarre and Fisch and our insightful classmates has allowed me to discover the potential for the future of humanities studies in the virtual realm.” – Dingqi Chen MA Program in the Humanities(Re)Orienting Performance Studies: East Asia as MethodAriel Fox, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsMelissa Van Wyk, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsUndergraduate courseVirtual Ethnography: Encounters in MediationThomas Lamarre, Cinema & Media StudiesMichael Fisch, AnthropologyUndergraduate courseCDI COURSES, 2023–24Insect Media Chelsea Foxwell, Art HistoryThomas Lamarre, Cinema & Media StudiesMixed-enrollment course New Perspectives on Language Emergence Diane Brentari, LinguisticsTerra Edwards, Comparative Human DevelopmentMixed-enrollment course
Launched in 2021, the Franke Faculty Grant Program supports a limited number of new research and/or public-facing projects. The Franke works with faculty and the College to include undergraduate research assistants for some projects as desired. 2022-23CULTURAL STUDIES IN THE PLATFORM ERA Hoyt Long, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsThis investigation focuses on “attention” and “attachment” as twin poles for understanding how certain kinds of television shows travel faster and further than others. The Netflix- produced Squid Game has served as the central case study with its reception informing ideas around global distribution and reception of television in the streaming era. ENCOUNTER: EXPERIMENTS IN TRANSMEDIA PERFORMANCE Patrick Jagoda, Cinema & Media Studies and English Language & Literature; Heidi Coleman, Theater & Performance StudiesEncounter is a media art experiment that combines transmedia, improvisational, and live interactive performance. This project constructs a game-like narrative architecture that enables a replayable performance piece. Players remotely interact with an actor to tell a short story that is unique to each playthrough. THE POESIA LATINA PROJECT Rachel Galvin, English Language & Literature and Comparative LiteratureThis project supports videotaped interviews with contemporary Latinx poets, editors, literary leaders, and culture mavens. Some interviews are accompanied by public readings/performances. The recordings contribute to a repository of original material that will be made available in a research and teaching resource housed on a dedicated website.FRANKE FACULTY GRANTS, 2022–23“Placeholder text. Am quodi bla voluptur, omnimod quiatem doluptat laceat et maio blant dollore heni. Aerfero que volore odigeni mintotat unt mo et optatistrum harum ium volupid mi, volupiet ad que nosa solupta sit ilist, quidus simus que nosam. Si coresti busania volore que prati illaccus doluptias-sit ullorit ullatur aut quam.”- Person
6From top to bottom:Still from Squid Game (2021) Players have a live conversation with Patrick Jagoda during an improvised narrative on the set of Encounter Poetry books published by Atarraya Cartonera, Puerto Rico
8Filmmaker and programmer Monica Freeman. Photo courtesy of John Wise, circa 1977.2023-24HANNAH ARENDT: A PERIODICAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVE Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteratureThe aim of the project is to continue to experiment with modes of cataloguing and visualizing the information about Arendt’s periodical publications, and of conceptualizing them as disparate, but connected, ecologies.HISTORIES AND FUTURES OF BLACK FEMINIST FILMMAKING Allyson Nadia Field, Cinema & Media StudiesThis project will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to explore the rich intersection between Black women’s filmmaking, literature, and feminist thought.MEDICAL ETHICS IN CHICAGO AND RWANDA Haun Saussy, East Asian Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought This project intends to enlarge the scope of medical ethics by bringing together physicians and humanists on two continents with a common interest in remedying the eects of severe inequality.MONOCHROME MULTITUDES PUBLICATION Christine Mehring, Art HistoryThis publication will enrich and expand existing histories of the monochrome by articulating cultural, political, racial, or gendered meanings of monochrome art, emphasizing the significance of materials and media.RUSSIAN ANTIWAR SABOTAGE – FACTS AND FICTIONS Ania Aizman, Slavic Languages & LiteraturesThe goal of this project is to explore this transformation in Russian oppositional culture, particularly the emergent discourses and practices of sabotage among antiwar Russian groups.FOR AN ARCHIVE OF PAST GRANTS, PLEASE VISIT: franke.uchicago.edu/ frankefacultygrants
As the Franke expands its activities in the College through its new undergraduate courses in the Center for Disciplinary Innovation (see pp. 3–4), it has also undertaken new initiatives to provide college students with firsthand experience in humanistic research. In partnership with the College Center for Research and Fellowships, the Franke houses the College Summer Institute in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CSI). The CSI provides selected undergraduates intensive intellectual training with accomplished scholars across humanistic disciplines at the University of Chicago. Students contribute to original scholarship as research associates matched with larger, faculty-led projects. For more information about the CSI, please visit: https://ccrf.uchicago.edu/undergraduate-research/ college-summer-institute-csi 2023 COLLEGE SUMMER INSTITUTE (CSI) RESEARCH PROJECTSAesthetics of Artificial Intelligence Andre Uhl, Institute for the Formation of Knowledge Anticolonial Thought: An Anthology of Manifestos and Other Primary Documents Leah Feldman, Comparative Literature Back to School in Babylonia Susanne Paulus, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations“But Is It a Book?”: Uncovering Material Meaning in the Taschenbuch Collection Elizabeth Frengel, University of Chicago LibraryCapturing the Stars: The Untold History of Women at Yerkes Observatory Kristine Palmieri, Institute for the Formation of KnowledgeDoing Dialect, Doing Identity Marisa Casillas, Comparative Human DevelopmentEarly Collections Research at the Smart Museum Tara Kuruvilla, Smart MuseumEntanglements of Endometriosis Melanie Jeske, Institute for the Formation of KnowledgeCOLLEGIATE RESEARCH PROGRAM, 2022–23
10Extinction, Endangerment, and Threat: The History of Fungal Knowledge and Conservation Brad Bolman, Institute for the Formation of KnowledgeJewish Periodicals in the Mid-Twentieth Century Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteratureOrgans on Chips: Biomedical Models and the Political Economy of Innovation Melanie Jeske, Institute for the Formation of KnowledgeSocial Commentary and Propaganda in Communist East German Films Nicole G. Burgoyne, Germanic StudiesWill the Next Pandemic Be Fungal: Historicizing Fungi and Pathogens Brad Bolman, Institute for the Formation of KnowledgeAlongside a team of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers collaborating on the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures’ upcoming exhibit, “Back to School in Babylonia,” two undergraduate students, Sarah Ware and Dani Levy, spent their summer working on the team as junior members through the CSI internship program. Photo and caption courtesy of the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures.
“By offering not only time but also an interdisciplinary community of scholars whose feedback offered diverse and novel perspectives on my work, the Franke Fellowship significantly transformed my research. I am exceedingly grateful for the dedicated time to complete my first book, the financial support, and the opportunity to expand my research areas in directions I had not entirely foreseen.”- Kris TrujilloFranke Residential Fellowships support interdisciplinary research for faculty research and for graduate students completing their dissertations. Fellows meet throughout the year in weekly or biweekly workshops to discuss their works-in-progress in a spirit of transdisciplinary collaboration. The Franke Fellows group is chaired by Richard Neer, Director of the Franke Institute.FRANKE FACULTY RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSPhilip Bohlman Professor, Music The Cabaretesque in Jewish Music: Sounding Modern European History Anew “I seek new ways of understanding the historical narratives of modernism and modernity through the comparative study of cabaret.”Claudia Brittenham Associate Professor, Art History The Interconnected Mesoamerican World “I reconstruct a world before borders, where people, art, and ideas moved throughout ancient Mesoamerica and beyond.”Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas Assistant Professor, English Language & Literature God, Witches, War and Boys I Knew in School “My collection of essays explores violence, magic, religion, and sexuality.”Itamar Francez Associate Professor, Linguistics A Voice That Sounds All the Notes: Sound and Regeneration in Jabotinsky’s Hebrew Revivalism. “I examine language ideologies about sound and spoken language in Zionist discourse of Hebrew revival, focusing on the linguistic writings of Vladimir Jabotinsky.”Benjamin Morgan Associate Professor, English Language & Literature In Human Scale: Earth Systems in the Literary Imagination “I explore how nineteenth-century literature helped readers connect the limited scale of human experience to the vast, inhuman scales of biological and geological earth systems.”Anne Eakin Moss Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages & Literatures The Special Eects of Soviet Wonder “My book investigates the production and theorization of forms of cinematic wonder that helped to promote the Soviet political agenda during the 1930s.”FELLOWS’ RESEARCH PROJECTS, 2022–23
12Itamar Francez and Anne Eakin Moss James Osborne Associate Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Small-Scale Complexity: Central Anatolia in the Early First Millennium BCE “I characterize the sociopolitical organization of city-states that existed in Anatolia during the Iron Age and explain the conditions for their appearance.”Kris Trujillo Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature Jubilation of the Heart: How Monastic Song Became Mystical Poetics “I unearth the influence of monastic liturgy on the manifestations of embodiment, eroticism, and community in Christian mystical poetics.”FRANKE DISSERTATION COMPLETION RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSLaura Colaneri Doctoral Candidate, Romance Languages & Literatures The Sinister Southern Cone: Mood, Aect, and Horror in the Cultural Imaginary of Argentine and Brazilian State Terror “I examine how Argentine and Brazilian authors, filmmakers, and artists use conventions of the horror genre to create a sinister mood and aect in order to respond to the terror of political vio-lence under dictatorship.”Supurna Dasgupta Doctoral Candidate, South Asian Languages & Civilizations Intimate Revolutions: Men and Women in 1960s Bengali Literature “I study gender politics and radicalism in postcolonial literatures, with a focus on South Asia.”
FRANKE FELLOWS, 2022–23 Top row, left to right: Itamar Francez, Gary Kafer, Kris Trujillo, Claudia Brittenham, Benjamin Morgan, James Osborne, Philip BohlmanBottom row, left to right: Margot Browning, Associate Director, Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, Supurna Dasgupta, Laura Colaneri, Richard Neer, Director, Anne Eakin Moss, Yueling Ji“As an advanced graduate student in academia (an international one, no less) it can be dicult to operate with confidence about one’s own scholarly work. The Franke Institute and our generous Franke cohort helped me build a humanistic scholastic vocabulary that I can use beyond my area of expertise to foster wider connections. Additionally, the oce space is a real bonus for humanities graduate students at our university: it allowed me to separate my professional and personal spheres and acquire greater discipline in writing. I am grateful to the Institute for its support during a critical time of my graduate life.”– Supurna DasguptaYueling Ji Doctoral Candidate, East Asian Languages & Civilizations A History of Style: Literary Criticism in Cold War China “I search the history of Chinese literary criticism for a better way to think and speak about the elusive concept ‘style.’”Gary Kafer Doctoral Candidate, Cinema & Media Studies After Ubiquity: Surveillance Media and the Technics of Social Dierence “I examine how surveillance technologies produce uneven experiences of visibility and violence within contemporary digital culture.”
14Jiayi Chen Doctoral Candidate, East Asian Languages & Civilizations Reading Games in Early Modern China “My project explores the dynamic interplay between games and lit-erature from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and how this interplay sheds new light on the history of reading in a pre-digital ludic age.”Melina Garibovic Doctoral Candidate, Philosophy The Reality of Persons “I argue that phenomenological empathy provides a compelling response to the problem of other minds, one that allows us to see how we are sometimes aware of the actual thoughts and feelings of others.”Sam Gray Doctoral Candidate, Linguistics In Search of Sounding Like Oneself: Transmasculine Vocal Satisfac-tion and HRT “I explore the phonetics of vocal change during testosterone therapy for trans male and non-binary English speakers, and how this ultimately relates to happiness with one’s voice.”Kirsten Ihns Doctoral Candidate, English Language & Literature Aspect Choreography: Perceptual Rhythms in Experimental Poetry and Film (1970–2023) “My project oers a new way of thinking about how reflexively cognized, time-based artworks can format conceptual experience under the sign of immediacy at/after late Postmodernism.”Lee Jasperse Doctoral Candidate, English Language & Literature Insignificant Others: The Literary Politics of Celibacy, 1880–1930 “I argue that the early-twentieth-century cultural politics of celibacy were rooted in fears of women’s reproductive exhaustion, unsustainable capitalist growth, and white racial decline.”Ayelet Kotler Doctoral Candidate, South Asian Languages & Civilizations Persian Literary Translation in the Early Mughal Period “I examine Persian translations of Sanskrit literature and seek to historically and culturally contextualize what translation meant in early modern South Asia.”AFFILIATED DOCTORAL FELLOWSThe Aliated Doctoral Fellows hold Dissertation Completion Fellowships from the Humanities Division and are members of the Franke community. This past year, Aliated Fellows met at the Franke Institute to discuss their works-in-progress, to enrich each other’s projects with new perspectives, and to provide intellectual community at a crucial juncture—with some fellows joining online from Los Angeles and Germany. The Aliated Fellows group is chaired by Margot Browning, Associate Director of the Franke Institute.
AFFILIATED FELLOWS, 2022–23 Margot Browning, Associate Director, Ella Wilhelm, Stephanie Kraver, Peter Metzel, Florian Walch, Cooper Long, Ayelet Kotler, Kirsten IhnsNot pictured: Jiayi Chen, Melina Garibovic, Sam Gray, Lee Jasperse, Tiamur Reza, Joel Rhone, Siavash SabetrohaniStephanie Kraver Doctoral Candidate, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (Un)Believers in Times of War: Darwish and Ravikovitch’s Poetics of Possibility in Palestine/Israel “My project explores the poetry and meetings of celebrated Palestinian author Mahmoud Darwish and renowned Israeli writer and peace activist Dahlia Ravikovitch, charting the ways in which these poets envisage an alternative to the conditions of violence that punctuate the present.”Cooper Long Doctoral Candidate, Cinema & Media Studies John Frankenheimer’s Untimely Media “I argue that the work of the director John Frankenheimer (1930–2002), who moved between multiple media forms and industries, can change how we look at key issues in moving-image history, theory, and aesthetics.”Joel Rhone Doctoral Candidate, English Language & Literature Disciplinary Aesthetics: Race and Representation After the Cold War “I account for the ways that African American authors have borrowed from and contended with disparate disciplinary methodologies in response to multiculturalist imperatives to manage, archive, and represent racial dierence from the mid-twentieth century onward.”Siavash Sabetrohani Doctoral Candidate, Music Music Theory Between the Public Sphere and Nationalism in Eighteenth-Century Berlin “I investigate how Berlin became a center for music theory and practice in the eighteenth century.”
16FRANKE DISSERTATION COMPLETION RESIDENTIAL FELLOWS: NEXT STEPSCongratulations to all four Franke Dissertation Completion Fellows on finishing their dissertations and completing their degrees. We are delighted to share their next steps.Florian Walch Doctoral Candidate, Music Remediated Extremes: Extreme Metal’s Fragmentation into Subgenres during the Analog-Digital Transition, 1980–1995 “I argue that extreme metal’s conflicted attachment to digital technologies makes its development an exemplary case for understanding how genre and subgenres are marked by the memory of past media.”Ella Wilhelm Doctoral Candidate, Germanic Studies Heterocosmic Universality: Poetics and Worldmaking in Early German Romanticism “I explore the early German Romantic project of progressive univer-sal poetry from the perspective of their treatment of poetic worlds as heterocosms.”Named the Lindsay Teaching Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago, an award that recognizes outstanding teaching, Supurna Dasgupta will be teaching her self-designed course on “Debate, Dissent, Deviate: Literary Modernities in Modern South Asia.” Her other courses include “Readings in World Literature” in the Humanities Core and two Hindi courses.Supurna DasguptaAs a Teaching Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago, Yueling Ji will be teaching her self-designed course on “Lu Xun: Foundational Texts of Modern Chinese Literature.” In addition to teaching “Readings in World Literature” in the Humanities Core, she will also be the preceptor for BA thesis writers in her department.Yueling JiAs a Teaching Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago, Gary Kafer will be teaching a course of his own design on “Algorithmic Culture” in Cinema & Media Studies, as well as introductory courses in film and media studies: “Film and the Moving Image” and “Introduction to Film.”Gary KaferAs a Teaching Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago, Laura Colaneri will be teaching a Spanish literature course of her own design on “Contemporary Women Writers in Latin America,” as well as the Humanities Core course “Readings in World Literature: Poetry” and a course on “Beginning Elementary Spanish III.”Laura Colaneri
Selected by the Governing Board of the Franke Institute for the Humanities, the twelve incoming Franke Residential Fellows hail from seven departments in the Humanities and one department in the Social Sciences. FRANKE FACULTY RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSNoel Blanco Mourelle Assistant Professor, Romance Languages & Literatures Learning Machines: Lullism as a Technological FictionElizabeth Chatterjee Assistant Professor, History Energy Emergency: Climate Shocks and Fossil Fuels in Indira Gandhi’s IndiaAlexis Chema Assistant Professor, English Language & Literature Extravaganza: A Theory of Popular Poetry in the Era of ReadingIngrid Christian Associate Professor, Germanic Studies The Sociopoetics of Density (1889-1931)Noémie Ndiaye Assistant Professor, English Language & Literature Early Modernity in Black and BrownSJ Zhang Assistant Professor, English Language & Literature Going Maroon and Other Forms of FamilyErik Zyman Assistant Professor, Linguistics On the Symmetry Between Merge and AdjoinFRANKE FACULTY AFFILIATED RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSteven Rings Associate Professor, Music Ambient Contradictions: Spirituality, Politics, and Race in Immersive MusicsRESIDENTIAL FELLOWS, 2023–24
18The 2022-23 Franke Residential Fellows entering the Regenstein Library together.FRANKE DISSERTATION COMPLETION RESIDENTIAL FELLOWSSasha Crawford-Holland Doctoral Fellow, Cinema & Media Studies Making Sense of Heat: Epistemic Media and the Governance of Thermal PerceptionBeatrice Fazio Doctoral Fellow, Romance Languages & Literatures Going the Distance: The Coherence of Tradition from Petrarch to LeopardiSanghee Kim Doctoral Fellow, Linguistics Encoding and Retrieval of Discourse Structure during Language ComprehensionEthan Waddell Doctoral Fellow, East Asian Languages & Literatures Listening to South Korean Music through Popular Songs, 1950s–1970s
The Every Wednesday Luncheon Series connects faculty to the work of their colleagues in the humanities and the humanistic social sciences. On Wednesdays at 12:30 during this past academic year, faculty members had conversations about their current research followed by group discussion. For this series, faculty of any rank are encouraged to present, but there is a particular emphasis on work by new humanities faculty and visiting professors associated with collaborative projects. The spirit of the Every Wednesday series is transdisciplinary, as scholars from across the Division and the University gather to share ideas and learn from one another.WORKS IN PROGRESSOrit BashkinNear Eastern Languages & Civilizations Animals in Modern Iraqi FictionSeth BrodskyMusic and Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry Composing in the OmnicrisisAdrienne BrownEnglish Language & Literature Arts and Public LifeWhitney CoxSouth Asian Languages & Civilizations Liquid SwordsFrances FergusonEnglish Language & Literature Oratory and the NovelPatrick JagodaEnglish Language & Literature and Cinema & Media Studies Heidi Coleman Theater & Performance Studies Climate Change and Experiential GamesFlorian KlingerGermanic Studies Theory of FormRochona MajumdarSouth Asian Languages & Civilizations and Cinema & Media Studies Cinematic CitationDeborah L. NelsonEnglish Language & Literature Perishable ThingsEVERY WEDNESDAY LUNCHEON SERIES
20Patrick JagodaCecilia PalomboNear Eastern Languages & Civilizations Community in Early Islamic HistoryNoémie NdiayeEnglish Language & Literature Scripts of Blackness Carolina Lopez-RuizDivinity School and Classics The Making of the MediterraneanHoda El Shakry Comparative Literature Literary Re-Worlding in North AfricaAnia AizmanSlavic Languages & Literatures FascismRocco RubiniRomance Languages & Literatures and Theater & Performance Studies Making TraditionHaun SaussyEast Asian Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought Civilization(s) and Barbarism(s)Megan SullivanArt History Popular ArtNEW FACULTY
STUDENT FEEDBACKOn the course, Alternate Reality Games “I learned the values of alternative reality games as communal puzzle–solving tools, as well as healthy structures for group creative work.”On the course, Topics in Medical Ethics“This course made me better at thinking critically about ethical issues and taught me how to write a philosophy paper. This class attracted a lot of people from dierent majors; the discussion sections were filled with a wide variety of life experiences and viewpoints, which was refreshing and made me excited for discussions.”On the course, Water Water Everywhere“I really enjoyed the perspective of looking at art and art advocacy as a way of understanding and relating to water and felt that the course was unique from other classes I have taken on human rights and environmental policy.”In its twenty-fourth year, the Big Problems program provides a capstone curriculum for third- and fourth-year students, coordinated by the Franke Institute and the College. These elective courses oer students opportunities to broaden their studies from their departmental major by focusing on a “big problem”— a matter of global or universal concern that intersects with several disciplines and aects a variety of interest groups. By their nature, “big problems” call for interdisciplinary teamwork, yet their solutions may not be obvious or finally determinable. For more information, please see: http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/bigproblemsCOURSES, 2022–23Alternate Reality Games: Theory and ProductionPatrick Jagoda, Cinema & Media Studies Heidi Coleman, Theater & Performance StudiesDiasporic Narratives and MemoriesOlga Solovieva, Comparative Literature Bozena Shallcross, Slavic Languages & LiteraturesDisability and DesignMichele Friedner, Comparative Human Development Jennifer Iverson, MusicSensing the AnthropoceneJennifer Scappettone, English Language & Literature Amber Ginsburg, Visual Arts Topics in Medical EthicsDaniel Brudney, PhilosophyUnderstanding Practical WisdomAnne Henly, Psychology Howard Nusbaum, PsychologyUrban Design with NatureSabina Shaikh, Environmental Studies Emily Talen, Urban StudiesWater Water Everywhere?Susan Gzesh, Social Sciences Abigail Winograd, Neubauer CollegiumBIG PROBLEMS CURRICULUM IN THE COLLEGE
22COURSES, 2023–24Abortion: Morality, Politics, PhilosophyJason Bridges, Philosophy Daniel Brudney, PhilosophyAre We Doomed? Confronting the End of the WorldJames Evans, Sociology Daniel Holz, PhysicsDiasporic Narratives and MemoriesOlga Solovieva, Comparative Literature Bozena Shallcross, Slavic Languages & LiteraturesDigitizing Human Rights Jennifer Spruill, Social SciencesDisability and DesignMichele Friedner, Comparative Human Development Jennifer Iverson, MusicDrinking Alcohol: Social Problem or Normal Cultural Practice?Michael Dietler, Anthropology William Green, NeurologyFrom Fossils to Fermi’s Paradox: Origin and Evolution of Intelligent LifePaul Sereno, Organismal Biology Sarah London, Psychology Leslie Rogers, AstronomyPeople in Motion: Rethinking Transit in Chicago and BeyondEvan Carver, Environment, Geography, and Urbanization Luke Joyner, Architectural StudiesReimagining Our Future: Past, Present, and Future of Campus-Neighborhood RelationsPaul Sereno, Organismal Biology Chris Skrable, Chicago StudiesSustainability and ComputingAndrew Chien, Computer Science Luis Bettencourt, Ecology and EvolutionThinking Psychoanalytically: From the Sciences to the Arts Anne Beal, Social SciencesUrban Design with NatureSabina Shaikh, Environmental Studies Emily Talen, Urban StudiesWater Water Everywhere?Susan Gzesh, Social Sciences Abigail Winograd, Neubauer CollegiumStudents in the course on “Urban Design with Nature” debate whether Central Park is “the greenest place on Earth.” Photo by Central Park Conservancy.Course on “Water Water Everywhere?”Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Cloud Prototype, 2003.
24The Institute sponsors conferences on interdisciplinary topics in the humanities, including themes and issues drawn from the social sciences, that are co-sponsored with University of Chicago centers, departments, workshops, and divisions, as well as other institutions. During 2022–23, the Institute co-sponsored fifty-two conferences, lectures, and other events. CONFERENCES/SYMPOSIUMS 18th Annual Department of Cinema and Media Studies Graduate Student Conference: Cause/Eect Tiya Bolton, Cinema & Media Studies Andrea Oranday, Cinema & Media Studies 20th Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference: South Asian Stories and Storytelling Constantine Nakassis, Anthropology24th Annual Michicagoan Conference: Place, Space, and Landscape Tulio Bermúdez, Linguistics E. Summerson Carr, School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice and Anthropology Terra Edwards, Comparative Human Development 36th Annual Comparative Germanic Syntax Workshop Jason Merchant, Linguistics59th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society Akshay Aitha, Linguistics Kutay Serova, Linguistics Madeline Snigaro, LinguisticsAnnual Weissbourd Conference of the Society of Fellows Deborah Neibel, Society of FellowsArchival Fragments, Experimental Modes SJ Zhang, English Language & Literature Eric Slauter, English Language & LiteratureCruising the Past Kris Trujillo, Comparative LiteratureA Cultural History of South Asian Literature in an Age of Transition (1700–1800) Thibaut d’Hubert, South Asian Languages & CivilizationsGenesis: New Beginnings Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteratureGlobal Anti-Gender and Anti-LGBTQ+ Politics: Historical Continuities, Transnational Connections, Contested Futures Michaela Appeltovia, History Roy Kimmey, HistoryHistoricism Beyond Periodization: Transhistorical Methods in Chinese Literary Studies Conference Paola Iovene, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsKabuki in Print: Actor, Fans, Image, and Medium in Early Modern Japan and Beyond Chelsea Foxwell, Art History and East Asian Languages & CivilizationsEVENTS, 2022–23Kabuki in PrintFocused on the Smart Museum’s extraordinary collection of over one thousand Japanese prints, Kabuki in Print illuminated the early modern theatrical tradition of Japanese kabuki and the relations between page and stage—between print technology, narrative, visual art, and fan cultures —with experts from theater, literature, and art history. Toyohara Chikanobu, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX as Shizuka, from the play Senzai Soga Genji no Ishizue, 1885 (detail).The Brooks McCormick Jr. Collection of Japanese Prints, Smart Museum of Art.
Kant’s Doctrine of Right James Conant, Philosophy Matthias Haase, PhilosophyMongols, Mamluks, and Others: A Conference in Honor of John E. Woods Ahmed El Shamsy, Near Eastern Languages & CivilizationsMusic and the Internet Conference Paula Harper, MusicNew Directions in Amazonian Studies Conference Victoria Saramago, Romance Languages & Literatures Eduardo Leão, Romance Languages & LiteraturesNew Directions in the Study of Early Islam: A Conference in Honor of Fred Donner Ahmed El Shamsy, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Cecilia Palombo, Near Eastern Languages & CivilizationsPasolini’s Cultural and Political Legacy Armando Maggi, Romance Languages & Literatures The Philosophy of Michael Kremer: Frege, Wittgenstein, Ryle, and the Analytic Tradition James Conant, PhilosophyPhoenix Poets Literary Festival Alan Thomas, University of Chicago Press Srikanth Reddy, English Language & Literature and Creative WritingMusic and the Internet ConferenceAt the intersection of music, sound, and digital culture, this interdisciplinary conference explored how the 21st-century internet is a noisy place: from auto-playing videos to social media echo chambers, music has become both a shaped and a shaping medium in the music industry and in everyday musical activity.Image public domain.
26Power on Trial: Public Opinion and Political Legitimacy from the Enlightenment to the Napoleonic Era and Its Modern Implications Ryan Brown, Romance Languages & Literatures Maximilien Novak, Romance Languages & LiteraturesPower over Life and Death: Feminism, Abolition, and the State Daniel Epstein, Political Science Kit Ginzky, History Helen Galvin Ross, Political ScienceThe Quest for Modern Language Between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea Orit Bashkin, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Holly Shissler, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Itamar Francez, Linguistics Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteratureRadical Formalisms: Rethinking the Literary in Greco-Roman Antiquity and Beyond Sarah Nooter, Classics and Theatre & Performance StudiesRevision and Transformation: Rainer Maria Rilke’s Book of Images Ingrid Christian, Germanic StudiesScience and Liberalism Isabel Gabel, History and Institute on the Formation of Knowledge Stephanie Dick, Simon Fraser University Marc Aidino, Jeerson Scholars FoundationThe Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts 2023This nine-week screening series and closing symposium commemorated the original 1976 Sojourner Truth Festival of the Arts, considered the first Black women’s film festival. The event brought together over seventy Black women filmmakers, writers, archivists, curators, and scholars, gathering to reflect on the past and future of Black women’s filmmaking.Still from Back Inside Herself, S. Pearl Sharp (1984).
Shi’i Studies Symposium Orit Bashkin, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Alireza Doostdar, Divinity School and Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion Tahera Qutbuddin, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Paul Walker, Near Eastern Languages & CivilizationsSojourner Truth Festival for the Arts Allyson Nadia Field, Cinema & Media StudiesSounding the Spectral: A Symposium Seth Brodsky, Music and Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry Martha Feldman, MusicThings to Do with Descartes Chris Wild, Germanic Studies and Theatre & Performance StudiesWorkshop on Ancient Greek Philosophy of Race and Ethnicity John Proios, PhilosophyLECTURES/WORKSHOPS/DISCUSSIONS Conversation on Sensory Futures: Deafness and Cochlear Implant Infrastructures in India Michele Friedner, Comparative Human Development Jennifer Iverson, MusicSounding the SpectralThe symposium elucidated insights about the challenges of history, the role of remainders, and the capacity of music and sound to model a spectral modality. We cannot take hold of a spectral register with certainty; it is a register that refuses to present itself with clarity or reveal what it is.Image by Elissa Osterland.
28Conversation on Unseen Art: Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica Claudia Brittenham, Art History Wu Hung, Art History and East Asian Languages & Civilizations Sarah Newman, Anthropology Mary Weismantel, Northwestern UniversityCross-Genre//Greater Mexico Amy Sara Carroll, University of California, San DiegoKingly Crafts: The Archaeology of Craft Production in Late Shang China Yung-ti Li, East Asian Languages & CivilizationsMonochrome Multitudes: Lecture Series Amanda Williams, Artist and Architect Arturo Herrera, Visual Artist Byron Kim, Visual Artist Dan Peterman, University of Illinois at Chicago Haegue Yang, Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main Irena Haiduk, Performance Artist Sheila Hicks, Textile Artist Tobias Rehberger, Städelschule, Frankfurt am MainReading and Conversation Achy Obejas, Novelist, Poet, Translator, Self-TranslatorReading From Tokyo Ueno Station Yu Miri, PlaywrightMonochrome MultitudesIn conjunction with the Monochrome Multitudes exhibit, a series of talks by exhibiting artists considered rich, idiosyncratic references and resonances in their own work, in relation to histories of the monochrome and abstraction. Featured artists included Irena Haiduk, Arturo Herrera, Dan Peterman, Sheila Hicks, Amanda Williams, Byron Kim, Haegue Yang, and Tobias Rehberger. Detail of Claire Zeisler, Triptych, 1967, Smart Museum of Art. Photograph by Claire Rich-Carcara.
Sino-Japanese Cultural Diplomacy in the 1950s: The Making and Reception of the Matsuyama Ballet’s The White-Haired Girl Emily Wilcox, William & Mary Towards an Emotional History of Zionism Derek J. Penslar, Harvard UniversityUnpacking the “Culture of Migration” Trope: A Study of Radiophonic Debates in Kaye, Mali (1980) Aïssatou Mbodj-Pouye, Institut des Mondes Africains Writing and Resistance Tenzin Tsundue, Poet, Writer, Refugee, ActivistEXHIBITS/FILMS/PERFORMANCESFilm Screening of Jai Bhim Comrade Anand Patwardan, Documentary Filmmaker Ritika Kaushik, Film HistorianFilm Screening of Chac: The Rain God Edgar Garcia, English Language & LiteratureFilm Screening of Jai Bhim Comrade Still from Jai Bhim Comrade, Anand Patwardhan (2011).
30CO-SPONSORS FOR THE 2022–23 EVENTS AND PROGRAMSAt the University of Chicago:Center for the Art of East Asia, Center for Disciplinary Innovation, Center for East Asian Studies, Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies, Center for Eective Government, Center for German Philosophy, Center for International Social Science Research, Center for Latin American Studies, Center for Leadership and Involvement, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, The College, Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization, Committee on Southern Asian Studies, Creative Writing, Department of Anthropology, Department of Art History, Department of Cinema & Media Studies, Department of Classics, Department of Comparative Human Development, Department of Comparative Literature, Department of English Language & Literature, Department of Germanic Studies, Department of History, Department of Linguistics, Department of Music, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, Department of Philosophy, Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, Department of Sociology, Department of South Asian Languages & Civilizations, Digital Media Workshop, Disability Studies Workshop, Divinity School, Film Studies Center, France Chicago Center, Global Studies, Graduate Council, Graduate Council Academic and Professional Fund, Graham School, Humanities Division, Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, International House’s Global Voices Program, Islamic Studies Workshop, June and Harold Patinkin Fund at the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies, Katz Center for Mexican Studies, Lichtstern Fund, Mass Culture Workshop, McKeon Center at the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, Media Arts Data and Design Center, Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine, Neubauer Collegium, Nicholson Center for British Studies, Oce of the Provost, Open Practice Committee, Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, Smart Museum, Social Sciences Division, Sound and Society Workshop, UChicago Arts, UChicago Press, Wigeland Fund in the Division of the HumanitiesExternal Co-sponsors:American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arts Midwest GIG Fund, Black Film Center & Archive, Black Public Media, Council of American Overseas Research Centers, Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology at Simon Fraser University, Feminist Media Histories, Goethe-Institut, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, National Endowment for the Arts, Poetry Foundation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Seminary Co-op Bookstores, Sisters in Cinema, South Side Projections, University of California at San Diego Academic SenateFaculty Organizers:Anthropology, Art History, Cinema & Media Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, Creative Writing, Divinity School, East Asian Languages & Civilizations, English Language & Literature, Germanic Studies, History, Linguistics, Music, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, Philosophy, Romance Languages & Literatures, South Asian Languages & Civilizations, Theater & Performance StudiesAt the Franke Institute:The Adelyn Russell Bogert Fund supports activities involving the arts. This year, the Bogert Fund co-sponsored the following events: 18th Annual Department of Cinema and Media Studies Graduate Student Conference: Cause/EectMonochrome Multitudes: A SymposiumPasolini’s Cultural and Political LegacySojourner Truth Festival for the Arts
For 2023–24, the Governing Board of the Franke Institute has awarded twelve grants to faculty members and graduate students for events on widely-ranging topics, including the ones listed below. For information about these events throughout the year, please see: franke.uchicago.edu. AUTUMNConference and Festschrift in Honor of Gary Tubb Andrew Ollett, South Asian Languages & CivilizationsGlobal Shapes of Knowledge: Towards a History of Research Whitney Cox, South Asian Languages & Civilizations Haun Saussy, East Asian Languages & Civilizations and the Committee on Social Thought Ahmed El Shamsy, Near Eastern Languages & CivilizationsLessing’s Legacy Joseph Haydt, Divinity SchoolLocal Knowledge: Reimagining Musicological Futures Martha Feldman, Music Ferdinand Schevill, Music Erika Supria Honisch, MusicMrinal Sen Daniel Morgan, Cinema & Media Studies Rochona Majumdar, South Asian Languages & CivilizationsEVENTS, 2023–24Mrinal Sen Marking the centenary of the Indian filmmaker Mrinal Sen’s birth, this conference will feature film screenings, academic panels, and a public roundtable about Sen and the “New” Indian Cinema, Third Cinema, and “the enemy within.”Still from Bhuvan Shome, Mrinal Sen (1969).
32WINTERHannah Arendt in the Aufbau Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteraturePhotography in Jewish History Na’ama Rokem, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Comparative LiteratureReading Consent: The French Canon through the Female Gaze Pauline Goul, Romance Languages & LiteraturesSPRINGChicago Tamil Forum Victoria Gross, MA Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) and AnthropologySignification, Circulation, Emanations Constantine Nakassis, AnthropologySocial Structures and their Symptoms Amy Levine, Philosophy and the Committee on Social Thought Bellamy Mitchell, English Language & Literature Jonathan Lear, Philosophy and the Committee on Social ThoughtWhat’s Left of Kant? Will Levine, Political Science Hannah Arendt in the Aufbau Framed from the perspective of periodical studies, this workshop will explore Hannah Arendt’s articles in the Aufbau, considering them as media objects, documents of social and cultural history, and complex linguistic objects.Hannah Arendt in 1944. Photo by Fred Stein/Corbis.
Above: The Regenstein Library, home to the Franke Institute for the Humanities Below: From the “Archival Fragments, Experimental Modes” conference at the Franke InstituteTHE FRANKE INSTITUTE IN PICTURES
34Above and below: From the “Cruising the Past” conferene at the Franke Institute
GOVERNING BOARD AND STAFF2022–23 BULLETINCo-editors Mai Vukcevich Richard Neer Margot Browning Rachel Drew Abigail Anderson Graphic Designers Rachel Drew Samantha DelacruzContributing Photographers John Zich Joe SterbencMai VukcevichRichard NeerGOVERNING BOARDAllyson Nadia FieldCinema & Media StudiesAdam Green History Jennifer Iverson MusicGabriel Richardson LearPhilosophyAgnes Lugo-Ortiz Romance Languages & LiteraturesCatriona MacLeod (on leave) Germanic StudiesKenneth WarrenEnglish Language & LiteratureSTAFFRichard NeerDirectorMargot BrowningAssociate DirectorMai Vukcevich Assistant DirectorVerletta “Vee” Bonney Manager, Finance & EventsRachel Drew Public Aairs SpecialistSullivan Fitz Project Assistant Manuel Rivera Project Assistant
36franke.uchicago.edu 773-702-8274 franke-humanities@uchicago.eduCONNECT WITH THE FRANKE INSTITUTE ONLINEIn addition to the Franke’s website, check out our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages for announcements, event updates, recordings, and more. Web: franke.uchicago.eduFacebook: facebook.com/frankeinstituteTwitter: @UChiFrankeInstYouTube: UChicago Franke Institute for the Humanities
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